EO Products: Susan Griffin-Black & Brad Black

In the early 1990s, Susan Griffin-Black was working for Esprit in San Francisco. On a business trip to London, she walked into a Covent Garden apothecary shop, picked up a bottle of lavender oil and took a whiff. The aroma — "like being in a beautiful garden" — literally changed her life. That was the inspiration to develop her own line of essential oil products. For 15 years, she and her husband and co-founder Brad Black barely scraped by, but the business eventually thrived. And though their marriage ultimately ended, their partnership continues. PLUS for our postscript "How You Built That," Lia Heifetz of Barnacle Foods describes how she and her partners turned Alaskan bull kelp into pickles and salsa. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

  So really quickly, before we start the show, we've got another live show coming to Washington DC on September 12th at the Lincoln Theater. I'll be talking with Tristan Walker, founder of Walker & Company Brands, which makes beauty products like Bevel and Form. We're also going to be announcing two more live shows on the East Coast soon. And don't forget, we still have a few tickets available for the How I Built This Summit in San Francisco in October. The summit is supported by American Express, and at the summit, you'll be able to hear and probably even meet some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, founders behind companies like Instagram, Slack, JetBlue, Away, Jenny's Ice Cream, and many, many more. The summit is an incredible opportunity to connect with other builders and to hear

• 0:42Guy Raz?

  from experts on how to grow and scale your business. You can get tickets for both the DC live show and the summit at nprpresents.org, and I hope to see you there.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  So the meeting that we went to with the new buyer?

• 1:00Speaker 02

  The first meeting.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Right, with the first meeting. I think I was nursing. I remember being in that room, having a baby, and just presenting. This woman was, I don't know, in her late 20s, and she was not responding to anything that we were saying in a positive manner.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  So it was a hard meeting. And without them, we were sunk.

• 1:29Guy Raz?

  From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 1:41Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how a chance whiff of lavender inspired Susan Griffin Black to launch a line of essential oils and then grow that idea into EO Products, one of the most successful, independently-owned, natural body care companies.

• 2:01Guy Raz?

  So there's a word that gets thrown out a lot by venture capitalists and rich folks who invest in startups, and that word is scale. If you've ever tried to raise money for a business, you probably found yourself seated across a table from someone who asked, "How are you going to scale this thing?" And what that investor was really asking was, "How are you going to grow your company into a billion-dollar venture so I can get 100x return on my money?" Scale means big profits for investors, but it can also mean growth as the only goal that really matters. But some entrepreneurs are more interested in a slow, sustainable growth model, which is why they avoid venture capital. Think

• 2:45Guy Raz?

  Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia, or Seth Tippett of Tofurkey, or Kim Jordan of New Belgium Brewery. All of those companies are independently owned, beholden to neither shareholders nor venture capitalists. Same thing with a company whose story you are about to hear, because EO Products is, in a way, the opposite of scale. Brad and Susan Griffin Black have never taken any venture money, and they never had much money of their own. So the story of EO Products is a story of a slow burn, nearly 30 years of building up a brand, one product at a time, fighting for every store, and eventually, and sustainably, growing

• 3:27Guy Raz?

  into one of the most recognized natural body care brands in the US. Today, the company does about $50 million in revenue a year. But 30 years ago, when she started the company, Susan Griffin Black was a single mom raising her son in San Francisco. But that's not the most amazing thing about this story. The company itself was barely scraping by for its first 15 years. And once it actually started to take off, it could have unraveled because the co-founders split up. Their marriage collapsed. But we'll get there. For now, let's start in the years before Brad and Susan met, in the late 1980s. They were

• 4:08Guy Raz?

  both living in San Francisco. Brad had just moved there from the East Coast after leaving a job in computer sales.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  My initial motivation was to move to Australia, yet this is pre-internet and I didn't know anyone in Australia, so I had a couple of friends in San Francisco. And, you know, I sold everything. I guess I had like $2,000 or $3,000 in the bank account and moved in with one of them who was on Haight Street.

• 4:34Guy Raz?

  And what did you do?

• 4:35Speaker 02

  We started a clothing company called Maniac. And Maniac is spelled as in the state of Maine.

• 4:44Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  M-A-I-N-E hyphen I-A-C.

• 4:47Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  And, you know, we held the space of kind of like rock climbing and mountain biking. This was the time, 88, late 80s, where the whole activewear thing came alive. Stussy, Massimo. And so it's activewear and then that tied into our lifestyle. So then we would mountain bike and we would rock climb during the day and run the business. And then we would go out and party at night, all the time wearing our clothes, which, like, who doesn't want to show off what they do? And if you make your own clothes, and we made our own clothes, and we would sew our own clothes. I mean, you know, much of it via ignorance.

• 5:31Guy Raz?

  And like, how was the business doing?

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Well, business was kind of secondary to lifestyle. We were living at large, you know, entrepreneurs in San Francisco. And this is before the dot-com internet thing hit. And it was very vibrant, a little gritty, yet artistic. And we could really own it. And, you know, we would peddle our wares. And we sold to Nordstrom, and we sold to the hardcore rock climbing shops. Yet we didn't really ever make money. And when we had the opportunity to make money, we just never, I don't know if we were mature enough or that we saw the opportunity that was in front of us, yet we didn't make money.

• 6:18Guy Raz?

  And Susan, around this time, I guess, you also had like a clothing store in San Francisco?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a great little store and we got written up in the Chronicle probably within the first couple of weeks. And so that gave us a great start and, you know, we're part of a local design community and it was a really vibrant time.

• 6:43Guy Raz?

  And at that time, you were married to someone else, right? To a lawyer named Bill?

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, we were, I think we were in an apartment by that time in the marina. He passes the bar and goes to work for a big law firm. And things were much cushier eventually. We went from the marina to a very nice building in Pacific Heights. He was working really hard. I had a store on Sutter Street. Mark was born, my son was born in 1986. And it all looked very good. It didn't feel very good to me, but it looked good.

• 7:28Guy Raz?

  Why didn't it feel good? What was wrong?

• 7:31Speaker 01

  I don't know. I guess I had fallen into what was considered at the time, the yuppie life. I'm a free spirit and I really liked the whole art scene, which I wasn't really doing much of anymore. And all of a sudden, it was like waking up one day and feeling like I was at the wrong party. Like I didn't really know or really relate to the people who were there. And I had this like a doorman, a kid, and a French nanny. And it all looked

• 8:09Speaker 01

  good and it just started to feel fragmented. My conversations, our conversations were pretty stilted and got very tense because I really felt like Bill had sold out and he was sort of on the wrong side of things.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  I just felt like it just wasn't my life. And I couldn't make it my life. So when Mark was two and a half, we split.

• 8:37Guy Raz?

  You and Bill split?

• 8:39Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:39Guy Raz?

  So you left behind the nanny, the doorman in Pacific Heights, the fancy apartment, and you left that behind?

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, much to my mother's dismay, as you can imagine.

• 8:52Guy Raz?

  So what about your business? I mean, did you continue to run your business?

• 8:57Speaker 01

  I did for a short amount of time, and then I sold that to my partner at the time for $12,000.

• 9:04Guy Raz?

  So you're now a single mom. And what was your plan? What did you think you wanted to do?

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Well, I wasn't stressed financially. I took a job because I could see that I would get stressed financially. So I ended up doing some consulting for friends in the clothing business and helped a few friends start their companies. And in 90, I took a job at Esprit, working for the late Doug Tompkins.

• 9:39Guy Raz?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, a legendary guy. I think he was one of the founders of the North Face.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Yes, originally, he was.

• 9:45Guy Raz?

  Yeah, and Esprit was a huge brand, definitely in the 80s and 90s, and still around today.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:52Guy Raz?

  All right, so this is like the early 90s. Both of you, Brad and Susan, both of you are in San Francisco. Both of you are working in the apparel business. And I guess at one point, Susan, you happened to go into Maniac, into Brad's store, and is that where the two of you meet?

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was their warehouse, actually, and all of the products were there. And I remember Brad and I shook hands. He was cute, he was smart, I liked him right away. He seemed like a good guy.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  It was really resonance right off the bat. And after Susan left, I got her business card, and this was June of 1988. I wrote her, "Dear Susan, you know, thank you for your time." And... We just connected and we kind of stayed in touch. She would help us a little bit, or I would help her. I think we were really struggling entrepreneurs and we were able, early on, to engage with each other. Like, she always got me and I always got her. And even now, you know, I mean, it's like, it's been 30 years and she can start a sentence

• 11:09Speaker 02

  almost and I can finish it.

• 11:11Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  But it really started that way, in many respects.

• 11:15Guy Raz?

  You guys, right away, were attracted to each other?

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:19Guy Raz?

  But you guys were not dating at that point. You were just hanging out.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  We were friends.

• 11:24Guy Raz?

  You were friends?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were friends.

• 11:26Guy Raz?

  All right, so you guys start meeting up. Susan, you were working at Esprit, this company that really was just like crushing it in the 80s and 90s. I remember everyone wearing either a Benetton sweatshirt or an Esprit sweatshirt.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yes. And also, at the time, you know, during that time, Doug was very interested in transforming the company into a more sustainable environmental company and looking at all the processes that were involved in manufacturing. And at that time, there were just so many incredible people coming through, whether it was, you know, David Brower, the environmentalist, or Yvon Chouinard, or Anita Roddick from The Body Shop. I mean, it was a portal for me into really thinking about and looking at sustainability.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  And so, I had met Anita Roddick from The Body Shop and she was opening franchises in Northern California. And I loved her, but I wasn't totally crazy about the products. I've always been a product person. I feel like I'm, you know, I've been ahead of it and trust my instincts, I think, eventually, anyway. So when I see something that I like, even if it's like a little bit off, as soon as people learn about it and understand it, they'll like it, too.

• 12:50Guy Raz?

  And I guess this all kind of begins to come together for you when Esprit sends you to London to go buy stuff for them, like on a buying trip. Is that, is that right?

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Well, yes. You know, we would go to trade shows, you know, fabric trade shows. It was the way to sort of interpret street fashion and up and coming trends.

• 13:11Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  And so I was in London on a buying trip and I was sort of running through the Covent Garden area.

• 13:20Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  And I ran into this little store and I was just taken by what it smelled like in there.

• 13:29Guy Raz?

  What was the store?

• 13:30Speaker 01

  It was called Neil's Yard Remedies.

• 13:32Guy Raz?

  Right near the cheese shop?

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, right next to Neil's Yard Dairy, right?

• 13:36Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  So upstairs, you could see an herbalist or an acupuncturist or a homeopath. And then you would come downstairs and get your prescriptions filled in this little apothecary. And so the reason that it smelled the way it smelled was because of the essential oils and the herbs that they stocked. So I picked up this little bottle of lavender essential oil and I inhaled and everything changed. Like I knew what I wanted to do with my, my life, you know?

• 14:07Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  The body shop sort of helped me pay attention to that segment of product in the market. And then this was like, oh, no, this is the product.

• 14:15Guy Raz?

  Wow. This must have been like totally mind blowing, right? Because essential oils still kind of hippie dippy, right? It's not, this is not mainstream.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  No, no. It was very hippie dippy, yeah.

• 14:27Guy Raz?

  And you go in there and this was like nothing you had seen before? You hadn't known about essential oils?

• 14:33Speaker 01

  You know, around that time, there were all those awful, you know, candle stores and all sorts of stores that you would go in and it would have a really synthetic, cloying smell, as did a lot of perfume, most perfume, right? Someone would get on that elevator and be like, oh, Lord, you know? This was like being in a beautiful garden, you know? I mean, it reminded me of great parts of my childhood, just like being at my grandma's watering tomatoes, the smell of lilacs. It was real and it was very different.

• 15:09Guy Raz?

  So you're in that store and what? You're there and you're thinking, I gotta figure out how to do something with this? Like, this is what I want to do?

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, I hadn't sort of lived that lifestyle. So I think, you know, I was searching, really, for what made sense and what was real and what had heart and meaning for me. And so that just opened up a new path and something new to learn and I was very passionate about it.

• 15:40Guy Raz?

  So like, what did you do at that point? Did you like contact the founder and say, hey, I want to, I want to work with you or like be a distributor or like sell this in the US? Is that what happened?

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Yes. And she wouldn't talk to me until I worked in the store. So I worked in the store for three days.

• 15:59Guy Raz?

  And what was her name?

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Romi Fraser.

• 16:02Guy Raz?

  And she said, you have to work in the store before we talk?

• 16:06Speaker 01

  She said, if you're interested, you know? I mean, the retail is the heart of what we're doing. So I was, you know, mixing herbal tinctures in the back room and doing all sorts of things and I loved it. And then we met after and basically, the idea was to open retail stores like that in the US.

• 16:27Guy Raz?

  And you said to Romi, I want to be your person doing this in the US?

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:32Guy Raz?

  And let me just, just out of curiosity, I mean, obviously, you are super talented, super smart and driven, but like, you had no money, you had no access to like, immediate capital, you had no track record selling essential house in the US. Why would she even consider working with you?

• 16:51Speaker 01

  Well, you know, she also was a small company.

• 16:54Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  I think at the time, they had a couple of stores. She could see how sincere and interested I was. And also, you know, from being in the clothing business, I did have relationships with buyers and, you know, merchandise managers and owners of specialty stores. So I had some access to understanding distribution.

• 17:17Guy Raz?

  So what did she say to you? She said, yeah, go back to the US and let's do this? Or what?

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Well, essentially, I tried to put a plan together for retail stores. And I could see that that would never work because you needed people who were very well versed in all of these alternative modalities, in aromatherapy and homeopathy. And I was running out of money. So I thought, best to wholesale and see who's interested, who wants it. And then I could have them pay for half of the order. I could import the product, which I did in my garage in Petrelle Hill, and then have the retailers who wanted it pay half upfront, and then I deliver it and get the rest of the money. So that's what I did.

• 18:07Guy Raz?

  All right. So you go, you're back in San Francisco. And by this time, like, 1992, you've got a five-year-old kid. And are you and Brad dating yet or not yet?

• 18:20Speaker 01

  We weren't really dating. I think we were still good friends. I think Brad had a girlfriend. And we would spend more time together because he was, I was in the neighborhood, and I was working out of my garage. And then he would ride his bike, open the garage door, and I had a little teeny office in there. He would help with business plans, and we would commiserate about, he was, he was still in the clothing business then.

• 18:45Guy Raz?

  And you were essentially trying to make this Import business of essential oils work. And Brad, do you remember like what, what did you think about this idea? Did you think, oh, this is a no brainer? Or were you just like, yeah, I want to help, I want to help Susan because I like her?

• 19:00Speaker 02

  It didn't happen that quickly. You know, Susan had no money and I had less. What really, I think, sustained the relationship and made it exciting is that it was never a no brainer, and it still isn't after 30 years. But I was full on in my clothing company and we wanted to help out each other.

• 19:25Guy Raz?

  And how did it work with Romi Fraser and Neil's Yard? Did you have to pay her upfront and then she would ship you the oils? Or was there like a partnership where she just shipped it to you and didn't charge you off the bat? Like, how did that work?

• 19:39Speaker 01

  We had net 30 terms.

• 19:41Guy Raz?

  30 days?

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think maybe in the beginning it was 60.

• 19:45Guy Raz?

  So she was basically selling you the oils at, at cost or a little bit above cost. You were then marking it up a little bit and, and that was it. So it was, it really was like a distributor relationship. You weren't, you weren't like an equity partner with her?

• 20:00Speaker 01

  No. It was a, it was a separate entity and finances were completely separate.

• 20:07Guy Raz?

  So how were you keeping this afloat? I mean, you had to pay Neil's Yard in 30 days. How are you making that work?

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Well, I, I raised a little bit of money from friends and family. So we'd have a little bit of a cushion and also be able to increase inventory and our accounts and eventually had to get a space in the same building where Brad's company was.

• 20:34Guy Raz?

  In San Francisco?

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:36Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And, and so you're running it out of there. And Brad, were you helping her with this?

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Well, kind of the, what was happening on my side of things is that we Decided to shut the business down.

• 20:49Guy Raz?

  Maniac.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  Maniac.

• 20:50Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 20:50Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. And then that kind of opened up a pocket for me. Well, you know, what am I going to do? And were we dating at that time? Probably.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  And I had two or three opportunities. One was I was going to open up a bungee jumping site in downtown San Francisco.

• 21:10Guy Raz?

  Wow, OK, yes.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  And.

• 21:12Guy Raz?

  All right.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  And another opportunity was working for a sock company out of Japan. And the third was working with Susan. And so our relationship started to develop. And there just were opportunities and we were good together. And so that's how our relationship lost them.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were selling Neil's Yard and we had that. We were making a few products for Neil's Yard because it was, we wanted to learn how to make stuff.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  So we would make bath salts and anything that you could cold mix and then pour.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  You were making it in a garage in San Francisco or you were outsourcing it to someone else?

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Well, in the warehouse that we rented, we had a small lab there and we were making a few things.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  You and other people or you by yourself?

• 21:59Speaker 01

  I had two employees.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  And a part-time bookkeeper because we had several accounts by then and so.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  So we were learning how to make things by hand. And I knew, someone introduced me to the marketing person at Birkenstock. And she said, why don't we do a little foot care kit, like gift with purchase?

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Of like a little foot salt and a little foot soak. And so we did a prototype and she gave us an order for $32,000. It was $320 for each gift box, which meant I had to make $10,000.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  And then Brad came down the hall and I'm like, how are we going to do $10,000?

• 22:42Speaker 02

  It was like such the I Love Lucy show when you walked into her. Warehouse and, you know, of course, I saw the numbers as well. And I didn't know anything about essential oils, really. I liked how they smelled. I didn't know how to really make anything, yet I can kind of figure out most things. You know, at Maniac, we made our own products. And so I learned how to sew. And, you know, learning these things from a mechanical aspect was pretty straightforward for me in terms of like, OK, well, this is just what you do.

• 23:14Guy Raz?

  Let's just put them together. Let's make these 10,000 kits.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. He said, we're not going to fill these by hand. We're going to, you know, jury rig this way to gravity feed and then we'll fill the bottles that way. And he had made gravity feed.

• 23:30Guy Raz?

  Can you describe, like, what did that look like? Was it like a giant funnel that you would just pour the salts in?

• 23:36Speaker 02

  You know, really what we did is we started from hand pouring into bottles to adding equipment. And, you know, gravity feed is one of the ways. But yeah, it's really taking it from the funnel and moving it to a machine. And then instead of one a minute, you have the ability to do eight a minute, or 10 a minute, or 50 a minute.

• 23:57Guy Raz?

  And that was presumably a game changer for you.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  We never would have been able to fill that order.

• 24:03Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Just like sprinkling it with a little shovel, I guess, a little scoop. That wouldn't work. Yeah, go slow.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  That wouldn't work, no.

• 24:11Guy Raz?

  Just out of curiosity, I mean, today, if you want to figure out how to make, you know, bath salts or things like that, you can just go online, right? In like 1993, 94, when you're doing this, how did you figure out how to make this stuff? Like, do you just buy a bunch of salts and add essential oils to it?

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Well, we did learn a lot from Neil's yard because they were a small manufacturer. So we could suss out the processes. I was very interested and studied aromatherapy with a bunch of different people. So I understood the Properties of essential oils and the blending of essential oils, which I've I understood how to do that.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  If you go online right now, you can see where the at-home person can create sort of the easier things, and that's what we stuck to. So we made bath salts, we made lip balms, we made massage oil.

• 25:04Guy Raz?

  So how are you getting the oils in 1995? Where were you where were you finding them?

• 25:10Speaker 01

  Well, through various distributors that we had started working with. We learned a lot about essential oils and distribution also from Neil's Yard and from taking aromatherapy classes.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  And then you would ask around, you know, and then, hey, I don't have a lavender, this person has a lavender, or, hey, I need an orange. Where is orange grown? All right, it's grown in Florida. So then you would, you know, go through the Yellow Pages.

• 25:37Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  And essential oils actually aren't oil. They're called essential oils because it's heavier than water. So when you talk about lavender, lavender grows many places, but the best lavender is from France. And, you know, there's a certain taste level, just like with food and wine, about, you know, what smells best, what's the best quality? Can you source that? Can you make that a consistent part of a formulation?

• 26:08Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Because essential oils are finicky, you know, the reason that people stopped using them and went to synthetic fragrance, you know, was because it was way less expensive.

• 26:19Guy Raz?

  Sure.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  And it was consistent.

• 26:22Guy Raz?

  And was the oil like being delivered to your little, I don't know, warehouse that you guys were running, like in tin drums or in like glass jars or giant bags of oil? Like, how did it come to you?

• 26:34Speaker 02

  Right, glass and aluminum bottles. And there were some local distributors as well, that even though they charged a lot, we had access to it.

• 26:46Guy Raz?

  Susan, I mean, you're basically running this little company that is trying to make a go at it with essential oils. How were you guys doing financially? Were you was it sustainable?

• 26:59Speaker 01

  Hmm, yes and no. I mean, sustainable as in raised a little money, we could pay the rent.

• 27:09Guy Raz?

  But you weren't making a ton of money.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no, no, no. We were scraping. But right along with that stress was the question of what else would I be doing?

• 27:20Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  You know, there was always like, yes, you're stressed and, okay, what do you want to do about it? You want to get a job? No. Do you want to do something else? No. And then it would sort of just settle into this is what we're doing.

• 27:34Guy Raz?

  You are, because you are basically the distributor for Neal's Yard, right?

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:40Guy Raz?

  And doing that alone was not going to be enough, just selling Neal's Yard.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  It wasn't. And it was because, you know, we were importing, so we were basically schlepping glass bottles halfway around the world and then reshipping them to other stores. And we got it up to a certain level of sales. I think it was half a million in the US. But we could still see how we could do it ourselves and do it for less money because, you know, all of that shipping and do it our own way.

• 28:14Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  So we gave them six months to find a different distributor.

• 28:19Guy Raz?

  You gave Neal's Yard six months?

• 28:21Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:21Guy Raz?

  You figured, we got to do this on our own now?

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:25Speaker 02

  Well, I think one of the early on indicators for us, see, around that time, essential oils and higher end personal care, bath care products started to take off in the gift market.

• 28:39Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 28:39Speaker 02

  And Susan had created an access point to a lot of retailers or folks that wanted us to make the products for them. And there was some demand because there just weren't that many companies that made essential oil based and more natural.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  Body care products.

• 29:01Guy Raz?

  So who, just out of curiosity, who was buying essential oils at the time, in the early 90s and mid 90s? Because people would put it, I guess, you could rub it behind your neck, or you could use it as aromatherapy, or use it in a bath. Like, what, who were your customers?

• 29:19Speaker 01

  So in 1995, Bloomingdale's called and said, will you make us four essential oil blends for our holiday catalog?

• 29:31Guy Raz?

  Wow, that's a big deal.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  I know, he said, sure. And we had to think of a name for the company then. And these were very small bottles, so we didn't have a lot of room on the label. And aromatherapy just seemed like way too long of a word. So we just came up with the initials EO. And then we did four blends for Bloomingdale's. And that started the company.

• 29:58Guy Raz?

  Okay, so 1995, you guys decide to launch your own company, and you called it EO Products, which stands for essential oils.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:07Guy Raz?

  Pretty simple, right?

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:08Guy Raz?

  Yes, okay. And how significant was that order? Was it like hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars? What do you remember about it?

• 30:15Speaker 01

  It was, I think, $15,000.

• 30:18Guy Raz?

  Okay, so it was pretty small.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. But we still had to fill a lot of bottles in a relatively short amount of time and come up with the formulations. And then it was sort of like, okay, now what?

• 30:31Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And again, 1995, so many things are so easy now. You can just get Shopify to put your web store online. You can easily find a company online that will make labels for you, that will even do fulfillment and shipping. How, for example, did you, like, because you had to slap labels on these little bottles, and they had to look nice, because it's Bloomingdale's, you cannot mess around. How did you do that, for example?

• 30:57Speaker 02

  You know, we're very good at doing. We would just figure it out, and our taste levels have always been high.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  And when you looked at products and more natural products and natural food stores, everything had a leaf on it or a flower.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Or, you know, really bad type and not very nice colors. So we just went very minimal and chose a beautiful typeface, which was Dido, which is a similar typeface to Vogue, actually, as it turns out.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  And the products had to smell exceptional. And then they also had to perform, which was a little bit of a hurdle. And our idea was that if we're using these expensive, very beautiful essential oils, we're not going to ruin it with harsh chemicals.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  And so there was a high bar that we set right off the bat.

• 31:57Guy Raz?

  And I guess, so at this point, Brad, you are working with Susan. You are two feet in. After a couple of years of dating and working closely, you really are in love. And you guys get married in 1995, in the middle, in sort of the midst of all this, right?

• 32:12Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. We were gravity-feeding and...

• 32:15Speaker 01

  And walking down the aisle, yeah.

• 32:17Speaker 02

  And getting married.

• 32:18Guy Raz?

  By the way, how did this, like, line of essential oils sell at Bloomingdale's? How did it do? Did it crush it? Did they sell out?

• 32:25Speaker 02

  It crushed it, but crushing it from the other side, I think they ordered once.

• 32:30Guy Raz?

  And that was it?

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:31Speaker 02

  However, it was a springboard.

• 32:33Guy Raz?

  It was a springboard, okay. And just to add something here, 1996, Susan, you had a 10-year-old. You guys were married, and you just had another baby. You guys had your first child together, Lucy. So you're a...

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:47Guy Raz?

  You've got a 10-year-old, a newborn baby. You're launching a business to get together. Was that crazy? Was it just, like, insane?

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Uh, yes.

• 32:56Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was. And the financial pressure was... There was a lot of financial pressure.

• 33:03Guy Raz?

  Because just you weren't selling as much as you wanted to sell?

• 33:08Speaker 02

  You know, we did not have... We didn't have money, really, for the first 15 to 18 years.

• 33:16Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 33:16Speaker 02

  It's come up a lot in this conversation, yet it didn't really come up much, other than...

• 33:24Speaker 02

  You know, I want to swear a little bit here, Guy, so I won't.

• 33:26Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  It was a struggle. And so we loved what we were doing.

• 33:33Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  And we're very scrappy.

• 33:35Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  And we just made it work. And that was really the reality of it all.

• 33:41Guy Raz?

  Were you guys interested in becoming rich? I mean, was that important to you, to make a lot of money? Was that not even top of mind? Be honest with me. Was part of you thinking, I've got to make this work. I've got to make a lot of money?

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Here's something that I kind of learned from my early 30s, when I lived in Pacific Heights, is that money is not the thing, right?

• 34:04Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  And I knew a lot of really rich, unhappy people.

• 34:08Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  And I know that money in and of itself, for me, wasn't the key motivator. And I already knew that that was not like my path to happiness. However, paying our rent was important and our bills. And surviving, a little bit past survival, was important because otherwise, it was a lot of pressure. So the question wasn't, when are we going to get rich? The question was, when are we going to make payroll?

• 34:42Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, Susan and Brad navigate the stress of growing a business and how that stress took a toll on their marriage. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 35:04Guy Raz?

  Oh, and one more thing. If you love How I Built This, check out my new podcast, Wisdom from the Top. It's a show about how some of the greatest leaders in business and politics managed some of the biggest corporate and professional crises you can ever imagine. You can find wisdom exclusively on Luminary. It's a new app that allows you to listen to all your favorite podcasts, plus a bunch of amazing exclusive shows just for subscribers. Shows from people like Lena Dunham, Trevor Noah, Russell Brand, Leon Nafok, the creator of Slow Burn, and many, many others. Download the Luminary app at your app store, or go to luminary.link/guy for a free, no strings attached, trial.

• 35:51Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 1996, and EO Products is, to say the least, having some money problems. But around that time, they get a lucky break, a big order from a West Coast apartment store called Mervyn's. And that order is enough to help them keep the lights on and also take on a new challenge, to try and get their products into Whole Foods.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  We went to our local Whole Foods in Mill Valley, and they turned us down. And then we did some guerrilla marketing. We would call Whole Foods and say, hi, do you have EO? They'd be like, no. We're like, oh, you should carry it. It's such a good product.

• 36:34Guy Raz?

  Wait, you would just call up and just the two of you would do this?

• 36:37Speaker 02

  Or our local friends would go into the Whole Foods and say, hey, do you have EO? Yeah, it was total guerrilla.

• 36:42Guy Raz?

  You would just troll the local Whole Foods, asking for... But that just sounds like a totally transparently obvious campaign. Like, didn't they know that you guys were doing this?

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Well, you know, we had a lot of friends. Our kids were in school. And then we had people who wrote notes on the community bulletin board, you know?

• 37:01Guy Raz?

  Asking, do you have EO products?

• 37:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, or why aren't you carrying EO products? And they finally, they finally started carrying our products. And then one Whole Foods led to the next. So I think maybe the buyer changed at Whole Foods. And, you know, it was very sort of buyer-centric. If they liked you and they wanted to carry you, that was their decision. And that's how Whole Foods ran, yeah.

• 37:26Guy Raz?

  All right. So 1997, you get into Whole Foods, kind of a big deal. Seems like you guys are really turning a corner. But I guess, like, later that year, or around that time, like, your biggest account, which was Mervyn's, they kind of were like, yeah, we think we're going to stop buying from you. Is that, is that true? Is that what happened?

• 37:48Speaker 02

  What a nightmare that was.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  I know. But, uh... The buyer changed, so the buyer that knew us and loved us left. And there was a new buyer who didn't really like aromatherapy and didn't really like essential oils.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  Susan, tell Guy about that meeting that we went to with Lucy.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  So the meeting that we went to with the new buyer?

• 38:10Speaker 02

  The first meeting.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Right, with the first meeting. I think I was nursing Lucy. I remember being in that room presenting, having a baby. This woman was, I don't know, in her late twenties and she was not responding to anything that we were saying in a positive manner.

• 38:29Speaker 02

  And without them, we were sunk. So it was a hard meeting.

• 38:32Guy Raz?

  I mean, when you say you were sunk, you lose Mervyn's, you lose this account. What does that mean? How close were you to the business just crumbling?

• 38:42Speaker 02

  You know, that's not such a big deal because, you know, we were on the brink of crumbling for many years.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Well, no, I think that this was a close one. This was, should I get a job? Should one of us get a job to just smooth out whatever was coming, you know? I mean, our accountant was like, hmm, you know? He did advise us to maybe fold and get a job.

• 39:12Guy Raz?

  Your accountant, after this Mervyn's thing, said, maybe you guys should just like-

• 39:16Speaker 01

  Call it a day.

• 39:18Guy Raz?

  I mean, that's, when your accountant is telling you that, the person who knows your finances better than anyone else, that's really bad.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  It was bad. But we didn't think about quitting. We just thought about how were we ever going to get through this to get to the other side.

• 39:36Guy Raz?

  So what happened? Was there anything that happened that kind of threw you a lifeline?

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Yes. We got a $65,000 order from TJ Maxx.

• 39:46Guy Raz?

  Bam. Just out of the blue?

• 39:49Speaker 01

  Well, they came to our place of business and at that time, we had a 3,000 square foot space and they came to visit and they just couldn't really believe that we were manufacturing everything there because it was, you know, 3,000 square feet, right? Yeah. And they still gave us an order.

• 40:09Guy Raz?

  All right, so you kind of get a lifeline from TJ Maxx. Thank you TJ Maxx.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Thank you TJ Maxx forever, yeah.

• 40:16Guy Raz?

  And you're in Whole Foods.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:18Guy Raz?

  Like, if you were to walk into a Whole Foods in 2000 and you saw a couple of EO products available, like, when people walk into grocery stores and they see, like, a product available, I think most people assume, oh, that's a big company, or, you know, the people involved in that company must be doing really well. In 1999, 2000, were you guys able to pay yourselves really good salaries?

• 40:41Speaker 01

  No.

• 40:43Guy Raz?

  No.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  But we were able to buy a small, private-label manufacturer.

• 40:50Guy Raz?

  Like a factory?

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. They had 1,000-gallon tank and a couple of other tanks and forklifts and everything, you know, was set up and ready to go.

• 41:03Guy Raz?

  This was a private label that was making soaps and beauty supplies?

• 41:08Speaker 01

  Yes, for other companies.

• 41:09Guy Raz?

  But not organic necessarily?

• 41:11Speaker 01

  No, and it was pretty rundown.

• 41:13Guy Raz?

  And how much did you guys pay for it?

• 41:16Speaker 01

  $250,000.

• 41:17Guy Raz?

  How did you have the money for that?

• 41:19Speaker 01

  We didn't. But there was a very progressive, small bank. Our accountant knew those guys, and they ended up lending us the money.

• 41:31Guy Raz?

  Wow. So at this point, you have the factory. How many products around 2000? How many products, different products, were you making?

• 41:40Speaker 01

  I'm gonna say 35.

• 41:41Guy Raz?

  Wow. So, like, soaps and hand soaps and shower gels and shampoos and what else?

• 41:48Speaker 01

  And conditioner, bubble bath, lotion, maybe lip balm.

• 41:52Guy Raz?

  So that's a big product line. And were you guys just working, like, crazy? Was it, like, all the time?

• 42:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, the way that it was working for, I don't know, maybe it was years, is that I would get up at the crack of dawn and get to work between 5 and 6, and Susan would take care of the kids and the home in the morning, and she would come in at 9 or 10, and then I would pick up, you know, at 3 or 4, and Susan would stay until 6 or 7. And that's really what the routine was.

• 42:26Guy Raz?

  And you were still pretty small, right? I mean, I don't think, I think in like 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, like you were probably doing, what, a million dollars, $2 million in gross sales?

• 42:38Speaker 01

  2002, yeah, 2, baby, yes.

• 42:42Guy Raz?

  And you never really raised massive amounts of money. You always, you always kind of 100,000, 2, 3, 400,000 there. I think a million dollars at one point, but you never went for like Series A, Series B, Series C?

• 42:57Speaker 01

  No.

• 42:58Guy Raz?

  I mean, first of all, you know, we've had companies on the show that, you know, that have gone to VC and, because they, they want to scale fast and they want to be first out the gate and they, they need the money to really grow fast. And I have to assume then, and maybe even now, you could pretty easily get that money. Was there a reason? Why you didn't want to do that?

• 43:18Speaker 01

  Yes, because everything I saw and that we saw of companies that took private equity money, and especially if they sold the majority, they didn't have control anymore. And I, we always joked that the first thing they would do is take that rose essential oil that costs $850 a kilo that we use, you know, very, very sparingly, but very beautifully, and they would take that out right away. And, you know, we've watched the consolidation in personal care and in natural personal care over the years. And that's been a consistent thing of changing the product slightly or not really taking care of the brand and its original intention.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  And there were a lot of unhappy people and not a lot of success stories.

• 44:06Guy Raz?

  All right, so you guys have this really cool business that you started together. You're raising two kids, you're growing, you got 35 products. Yeah, you're still small, but you can see where this is heading. And how did you guys do as a couple? How were you, how was your relationship going?

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was very tough, being married, raising kids, being under financial pressure. That takes a lot and it's, we sort of, we lost our way. We lost our way but, and we really cared about each other.

• 44:45Guy Raz?

  Did you go to canceling?

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Sure, yes. And it was helpful at times and I think it was definitely helpful long term because we can still refer back to how to work things out and how to smooth out our differences. We also, I think, individually did a lot of personal work and, you know, got to a place where we couldn't make it work and so we separated and then divorced.

• 45:18Guy Raz?

  I think people are hearing that are gonna just be shocked. You guys are sitting there together, talking so wonderfully and fondly about each other and you're divorced. 2007, you guys split up, you divorce.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:34Guy Raz?

  I've never heard of a story like this in my life. Not only are you business, but you, I guess, so you divorce and you guys decide what? You say, you know, this business is going well, let's just keep it going? Is that, is that what happened?

• 45:52Speaker 01

  I think we decided there's no reason to like, you know, take down the house. I mean, our personal relationship wasn't thriving, our business is, our kids are, so what is the best way, you know? And we understood our options, we could have sold, we could have bought each other out, we could, you know, we had options.

• 46:19Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  So, I mean, this was a very conscious choice.

• 46:22Guy Raz?

  It's just a remarkably adult and mature decision. Like, it speaks to the kind of people both of you are. I'm just wondering, like, what did the people in the office feel? Like, what was the atmosphere? Was it tense? Were people like, this is weird? Like, how did your employees respond?

• 46:40Speaker 02

  Well, the first two years were, were tough. And certainly, you know, the first six months were the hardest. And absolutely, they said that. And yet...

• 46:53Speaker 02

  For me, it just never got that bad. Like, there was a lot of demand on me to make it that bad, be it family, or culture, you know, or what have you. Oh, my gosh, you got divorced.

• 47:06Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  It's, this is the path that you go down.

• 47:08Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 47:09Speaker 02

  Yet, if all you're doing is you're looking to get through this day as best you can, it does shift the perspective a little bit.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  The, the other thing I, I think that's important is that there was no, no other person involved, so we didn't have to navigate that sort of betrayal.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  So, I think that because we were parents, that it didn't alter life, daily life, that much.

• 47:41Guy Raz?

  You, you're officially divorced, and presumably, it's still not easy, but the business really starts to take off. I guess around this time, Walgreens, and CVS, and Walmart start to express interest in carrying your products, and like, what, what explains that?

• 48:00Speaker 02

  The timing, I think that the timing really was on our side, that we were kind of met, because we were always ahead of the curve.

• 48:08Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. We were on, you know, sort of a parallel path with all the natural food stores. Whole Foods was growing at a really hefty clip. That was such a natural venue for us, because people were buying into the same beliefs about health and well-being.

• 48:26Guy Raz?

  Yeah. When you started to get into places like Walgreens, and Walmart, and Target, what did that mean for, I don't just like, could you meet the demand? I mean, even with your small little place?

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Well, that, that really didn't happen in a, in a big way until we launched our second brand, Everyone, and that was in 2012.

• 48:50Guy Raz?

  And that was sort of a, a more of a consumer, less expensive... Everyday products like shampoo and shower gel.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a larger format product. And our son's in a band and the band came home and they had all these really awful products in the bathroom when I went in. And I was like, have we taught you nothing? Like, you know, what are these products? And they'd be like, EO's too expensive and we need, we need a big soap. And then at the same time, Brad was hearing from a lot of Whole Foods buyers that we, you know, we needed a large size value sort of proposition. So we started a second line called Everyone. And that really just took off.

• 49:39Guy Raz?

  And how are you making it less expensive? Because you're buying expensive ingredients. So how are you able to make a more budget friendly product?

• 49:47Speaker 02

  We use many of the same ingredients. However, instead of using a rose, essential oils, we may keep it to citrus. Or instead of putting in a lot of extracts, which are expensive as well, we would, you know, do a much smaller amount. So we simplified formulas. In addition, our margin is less.

• 50:09Guy Raz?

  I mean, over the years, you've raised very little money. So most of this company you guys own, right?

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:17Guy Raz?

  I have to imagine that certainly in the last few years, you've been approached by all kinds of big, bigger companies who want to buy you.

• 50:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:28Guy Raz?

  And you said, no, not interested right now. Is there a reason why you wouldn't want to do that?

• 50:35Speaker 01

  You know, the idea wasn't to cash out. The idea was to build a company that we wanted to work for, that provided opportunity for as many people as possible.

• 50:49Speaker 02

  You know, the other part of this is the business is part of our life.

• 50:54Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 50:55Speaker 02

  It never was separate. And so you can look at the success of the business and you can also look at the success of our relationship, our family.

• 51:07Guy Raz?

  Yes, yes.

• 51:07Speaker 02

  So it really has enabled us, the business, to live to our highest potential.

• 51:15Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  Like, life is pretty good.

• 51:18Guy Raz?

  Do both of you, are both of you in new relationships today?

• 51:22Speaker 01

  I am and have been for the past five years, yes.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  No, Bradley's still looking.

• 51:27Guy Raz?

  And, but like, it sounds like you still consider yourselves to be really close, maybe like, almost best friends.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  We are, yes.

• 51:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, it almost, it almost takes things to a whole different level. You know, you have really special relationships with your siblings, brothers and sisters, and you also have some close friends. And I think that we've kind of taken some of those concepts and put them on steroids a little bit. I mean, imagine choosing to engage on a daily basis with the person you divorced, knowing all of the good things and all of the bad things, and then still choosing to be together. It's a wonderful experience.

• 52:08Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 52:09Speaker 02

  And we, it doesn't mean we get along all the time. So it's not that we don't get into fights, but we do tend to get out of fights pretty quickly.

• 52:15Guy Raz?

  I'm going to ask both of you the same question. Susan, first to you, what do you think it is about Brad that enabled this to work? Like, what is it about him that, that allowed you guys to stay friends and business partners and to work through the pain and stuff? Like, what do you think?

• 52:33Speaker 01

  He has a brilliant capacity to be irreverent and kind and open and stubborn. And with all of these qualities, we've always come out aligned on what's most important.

• 52:51Guy Raz?

  Brad, what is it about Susan that allowed for this to happen?

• 52:56Speaker 02

  Her perspective, her capacity to have compassion. And there was a, there was a guy that came into our office the other day, and there was someone sick in his family. And the way that she addressed him and engaged with him, he was met, it was, it was beautiful. And to be able to be this close with someone and not be involved romantically, it gives me such a great opportunity to be a better person.

• 53:30Guy Raz?

  What do you, what do you attribute your success to, the success of this business? To all the hard work you put into it and the blood, sweat and tears? Or, or your intelligence? Or just, or luck?

• 53:42Speaker 02

  Well, Susan, you're gonna laugh. You know, we do say this. We're not such great business people. We're really great not going out of business people. We haven't had the luxury to go out of business or not to make it work. There's never been a choice not to be successful, not to make it work.

• 54:00Guy Raz?

  Susan, how about you?

• 54:03Speaker 01

  We've been really privileged to be able to live our lives and meet that in our work with shared values. It's exceptional, and it's a beacon to show that it's very possible. If we can do it, you know, you can do it.

• 54:25Guy Raz?

  That's Susan Griffin Black and Brad Black, founders and CEOs of EO Products. The company now employs more than 140 people at their headquarters in San Rafael, California, which, by the way, used to be a special effects studio owned by George Lucas. He even filmed a few scenes for Star Wars inside. Today, the company churns out more than 50 products, including their signature lavender oil. Susan recommends a few drops of it in the bath before bedtime for restful sleep.

• 55:05Guy Raz?

  Tate, thanks for sticking around because it's time now for How You Built That. And today, our story starts in the cold northern waters of Juneau, Alaska.

• 55:14Speaker 03

  We're surrounded by the ocean on one side, and then on the other side, we're surrounded by ice fields and huge mountains.

• 55:21Guy Raz?

  This is Leah Heifetz, and for years, she and her partner Matt would get into an aluminum skiff and go fishing out in the Pacific.

• 55:29Speaker 03

  We'd be trolling for salmon, or maybe we'd be fishing for halibut, and the fish weren't biting that day. And rather than go home empty-handed, we would stop at a kelp bed.

• 55:42Guy Raz?

  A bed of bull kelp, to be exact. It's kind of twisty brown seaweed that sort of looks like a bullwhip.

• 55:49Speaker 03

  So we'd fill up a five-gallon bucket full of kelp. And be able to bring some bounty home.

• 55:54Guy Raz?

  And Lea describes bull kelp as bounty because it is totally edible. Bite into it raw and it has a consistency of a bell pepper.

• 56:03Speaker 03

  It's salty and crunchy and has a deep umami base flavor or a savory base flavor that makes everything in it taste more like itself. That's what umami does.

• 56:14Guy Raz?

  And it turns out bull kelp can also be pickled or cooked into salsa. So whenever Lea and Matt brought one of those five gallon buckets home.

• 56:23Speaker 03

  We would call up some friends to grab some other ingredients. So we would sometimes make a green salsa that had tomatillos. We made a variety of other salsas that had tomatoes and onions along with the kelp.

• 56:37Guy Raz?

  And what Lea and Matt discovered a few years ago is that kelp was actually getting some attention among foodies.

• 56:42Speaker 03

  So on a national scale, there's a lot of whispers in 2016 about kelp being the new kale.

• 56:48Guy Raz?

  Like other types of seaweed, kelp is full of nutrition and it can be made into all kinds of things like pasta and jerky, even butter. So anyway, up in Juneau, Lea and Matt started to sell their bull kelp salsa and pickles at farmers markets and people kind of took to it.

• 57:05Speaker 03

  Selling it locally wasn't a huge jump. The consumers in Alaska, a lot of them are familiar with it as a food.

• 57:14Guy Raz?

  But Lea says as they slowly tried to expand their products south of Alaska, it was a tougher sell.

• 57:20Speaker 03

  It has taken some more education and a lot of demoing so people have the opportunity to try it. And it makes sense to use salsa as kind of a gateway to get more people to eat kelp.

• 57:34Guy Raz?

  And I can report that some people on our team have tried the salsa and they say it tastes pretty good with just a slight aftertaste of the ocean. Anyway, soon after they launched, Lea and Matt won $40,000 in a startup competition and used that money to get their products into some regional grocery stores on the West Coast. But doing all of this from Juneau, Alaska, it's pretty tough.

• 57:57Speaker 03

  We're not on the road system. We are surrounded by the ocean and mountains. And that requires some real innovation when it comes to logistics.

• 58:07Guy Raz?

  Which means when they want to get their salsa and pickles out of Juneau.

• 58:11Speaker 03

  It usually involves a barge, sometimes a ferry, and then trucking once it hits the road system or air freight. So that's been a pretty immense challenge.

• 58:24Guy Raz?

  But since they went into business three years ago, Leah, Matt, and their other partner have been able to steadily grow the business. They're now harvesting, canning, and cooking bull kelp full time. They sell it online and in about 150 stores. And guess what? Last year, they made $350,000 in revenue selling bull kelp.

• 58:46Speaker 03

  Sometimes I think I'm sick of it. But once I crack one of those jars open and eat it, which is almost daily, it tastes so good. So, no, I'm not sick of kelp.

• 58:59Guy Raz?

  That's Leah Heifetz. She and her two partners, Matt and Max, are the founders of Barnacle Foods. If you want to find out more about the company or hear previous episodes, head to our podcast page, howibuiltthis.npr.org. And of course, if you want to tell us your story, go to build.npr.org. And thanks for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, please do give us a review. You can also write to us at [email protected]. And if you want to send a tweet, you can reach us at at howibuiltthis or at Guy Raz. Our show was produced this week by J.C. Howard with original music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. Our show was edited by Neva Grant. Thanks also to Julia Carney, Sanaz Meshkhanpour, and Jeff Rogers.

• 59:45Guy Raz?

  Our intern is David Ja. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.